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9.5 pm
Mr. Jack Straw (Blackburn): Like the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), I declare an interest as shown in the Register of Members' Interests. I commend what the hon. Gentleman had to say, particularly on disclosure.
The right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), in the first speech in the debate today from the Conservative Back Benches, made some thoughtful and provocative remarks on divorce, and then criticised the Government by saying that "friendly fire" from Conservative Members is always to be decried. Well, decried or not, we witnessed friendly fire from at least five Conservative Members who spoke allegedly in support of the Gracious Speech.
There came immediately a double-barrelled attack from the hon. Member for Crosby (Sir M. Thornton), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, who blasted into the proposals for grant-maintained schools and the proposals for nursery vouchers. He said that, if new money was to be provided for nursery education, it would be better to widen existing provision than to bring in a new scheme. That was exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) had said in his speech. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that he saw no enthusiasm for the further extension of grant-maintained schools, and asked whether we were to deprive parents the right too choose by the way in which--as he suggested--the Conservatives were about to fiddle votes for grant-maintained schools.
No sooner had the hon. Gentleman sat down than the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) stood up. So opposed is he to the proposals for nursery vouchers and grant-maintained schools that he announced to the House that, unless they were changed, he would not support the education measures in the Gracious Speech. He described the proposals for nursery vouchers as "socialist, centralised and bureaucratic". He is right about two of those--they are indeed centralised and bureaucratic, but those descriptions have now become the hallmark of the Conservative Administration.
The hon. Member for Reading, West (Sir A. Durant) can normally be relied on to be a loyal supporter of the Government in every conceivable circumstance, and he paid a customary tribute to the Gracious Speech. He then launched into a rip-roaring attack on the Government's housing policy, and told the House that unemployment among housing workers has risen by 500,000--we are grateful to him for that fact--and added that the figure was due to rise by another 100,000 if the Government did not do something about the state of the housing industry.
The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) announced that he did not support the assisted places scheme, while the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) criticised the possible inclusion of Pakistan on the white list. The hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) made a kind of supportive speech. His speech was mixed, rather like the advice he gave to the makers of "The Final Cut", with such extraordinary results. Then he said that there were a number of questions about grant-maintained schools that he had to raise. They were only fairly minor. They were operational and financial. He went on to construct--
Mr. Fabricant:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Straw:
I will in one moment.
Mr. Fabricant:
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is quoting me.
Mr. Straw:
That was not in "The Final Cut" either. I will of course give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. He went on to describe a policy of abolishing local education authorities and setting up a far more centralised and bureaucratic structure than any of us could imagine.
Mr. Fabricant:
If the hon. Gentleman had been here while I was speaking, he would know that I did not say what he has just quoted me as saying. The questions that I posed were those that would arise if all schools were forced to be grant-maintained. That is not the present policy. Grant-maintained status has not been forced on any school. The questions that I raised were about enforced, not voluntary, membership of the grant-maintained system. If the hon. Gentleman had been here, he would not have made the point that he has just made.
Mr. Straw:
It is no wonder that the hon. Gentleman is confused about whether he supports the Government's policy. He obviously does not know what it is. It is the Government's policy to try to secure the opt-out of all schools. The hon. Gentleman suggested a way through, with what he described as two tiers for administering education. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) has said, it sounded like the North Korean solution.
Of the three home affairs measures in the Gracious Speech, the one that is potentially the most divisive is the Asylum and Immigration Bill. In opening his statement on the Bill yesterday, the Secretary of State claimed that his Government had always attached the greatest priority to preserving good race relations in Britain. He did not seem properly to appreciate that the nature of immigration control pursued and the motives perceived to be behind it can have a direct impact on those good race relations.
If the controls operate fairly, if they strengthen families rather than fracture them, if changes are made for sound reasons, racial harmony will be sustained. But if the changes introduced are hasty, ill-considered or disproportionate to the problem or appear to have some extraneous object behind them, their consequence may be to stir up racial prejudice and tension. If, for example, emotive and exaggerated language is used, people may start to believe again the old saw that the immigrant flow is out of control. When such sentiment takes hold, people feel resentful about the presence of those in this country of a different race or colour.
People forget why many of those of a different race or colour came here in the first place. They forget that the original immigrants to my constituency came in answer to advertisements placed in Indian newspapers by British mill owners desperate for textile workers. They forget that the original influx of people from the West Indies came to solve a British labour shortage on the London buses. They even forget that Enoch Powell, when Conservative Minister of Health, advertised for nurses in the West Indies to work in London hospitals.
If we do not acknowledge the contribution that so many immigrants have made to this country, race relations will be damaged. When the last such Bill was introduced in the House, the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill, the then Home Secretary spoke of people who came to this country wanting
Mr. Robert G. Hughes:
I intervene because I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. The use of language is very important. Does the hon. Gentleman now regret saying to the Labour party conference that his party would vote against the Asylum and Immigration Bill? Is not the more sensible line that he is now adopting a result of the fact that his leader has insisted on his taking a different view from his original view?
Mr. Straw:
Of course I do not regret saying that to the Labour party conference. If the Bill is as anticipated, we shall certainly vote against it. What we want, as I shall describe, is the issue to be taken out of party politics. There is no reason why it should not be. If Conservative Members want it taken out of party politics, they should repudiate, as they have not yet done, what Mr. Andrew Lansley had to say about playing the race card.
Last Wednesday, the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), one of the most distinguished men in the House and himself a former Home Secretary, made a powerful plea about the worries of thoughtful people about what he called the empty noise and phoney warfare of our adversarial politics. In our view, the Special Standing Committee procedure offers a way out of that empty noise and phoney warfare.
The day after my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made his proposal for a Special Standing Committee, the Prime Minister was plainly warming to it. In an interview in The Independent, he said:
That, of course, was before the Home Secretary got back from his trip to America. When he did, he simply overruled this decent but weak Prime Minister. Instead, the Home Secretary sought to assert to an incredulous House yesterday that his proposals can be properly scrutinised in Standing Committee. The truth, which the whole House knows, is that Standing Committee scrutiny does not work. The Government's record of one bad and defective Bill after another shows that to be the case.
"to improve their quality of life."--[Official Report, 11 January 1993; Vol. 216, c. 731.]
That is true, as a great many in the House can certify. I can, as a great-grandson of an immigrant. So can the Secretary of State for Defence and the Home Secretary. Those of us who come from immigrant families have a special responsibility in how we act and what we say in respect of those who follow in our parents' footsteps.
"I do not want to deal with the problem in a way . . . which may unsettle people who do not deserve to be unsettled".
The two reporters from The Independent who interviewed him on Thursday commented that he was "leaning towards a yes" to that proposal.
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